


a negotiation

by batshape



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/F, Nargothrond, celegorm's unfortunate romantic inclinations toward carnivorous ainur, established background beren/luthien, that age old sex-as-political-negotiation cliche
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-17
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-26 04:47:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30100527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/batshape/pseuds/batshape
Summary: "That is no gift," said Lúthien lowly. "That is you asking another favor of me.":of Lúthien Tinúviel and the daughter of Fëanor(Fëanorian Week 2021, Day 3: Celegorm)
Relationships: Celegorm | Turcafinwë/Lúthien Tinúviel
Comments: 1
Kudos: 11





	a negotiation

**Author's Note:**

> content warning for brief mention of drowning, and also sex

The princess of Doriath was sitting upon the bed with her ankles crossed beneath her, her head tilted back to the ceiling, and when Celegorm closed the door behind her, she did not lower her gaze to greet her.

“Fëanoriel,” she said instead, and Celegorm’s ears flicked upward at the music of her voice. “Have you come once more to politic?”

“My lady,” said Celegorm vaguely. She dipped her head, testing the point of a canine against her tongue. She had been advised against singular conversations with the daughter of Thingol—threatened, in truth, in the way that Curvo threatened, with equal parts calculating extortion and pointed humiliation, and he had said  _ have you not prostrated yourself enough _ —and thus this was a covert visit. Her brother and her nephew would know nothing of it. “I have come to negotiate terms of your freedom.”

“We have discussed this before,” said Lúthien boredly. She removed her eyes from the ceiling, and fixed Celegorm with her mirrorless black gaze. “I have already rejected your terms.”

This was halfway true. Indeed, they had discussed the solution of political marriage on occasions past, but the particulars of such discussion had veered creatively from polite rejection.

(“I could sing you cheerful into the swiftest part of the Narog, Fëanoriel,” Lúthien had said at their most recent negotiation. “And you would not protest at the choking in your lungs until your ears had filled with enough water that you could hear me no longer.”)

(“Now,” had replied Celegorm. “Wouldn’t that be exciting.”)

Lúthien regarded her now imperiously. “You have come here late in the evening,” said she, and Celegorm lifted a brow.

“Is that unfavorable to you? I thought perhaps to allow you a glimpse of the stars.”

Lúthien rearranged herself such that she was no longer sitting on her heels, crossing her ankles before her now.

(“You are depriving me of the night sky,” she had said before, with fiercely clicking teeth. “If you have any hope that this will make me desperate, I can assure you—it is only making me angry.”)

“I think you have come here in secret, too,” said Lúthien. “And you know that this is unwise, which is why you have come armed.”

Celegorm’s gaze dropped involuntarily to the long hunting knife at her hip; Lúthien’s expression betrayed no emotion but her own mounting distaste. Her shortened hair moved softly against her sharp cheekbones, as in a breeze of the child of Melian’s own making.

Celegorm sat at a writing desk before the bed, and she did not cross her legs. Rather, she leaned forward to place her elbows on her knees and grinned, sharp. “Have you just now threatened me, daughter of Thingol?” she asked with amusement. “Again?”

Lúthien tipped back her gaze to the stone ceiling. “For what have you come, Fëanoriel?” She sounded bored even in the invocation of her patronym, though to hear it once again made Celegorm’s ears flick, her gaze sharpen. “If it is simply an exchange of pointless words, I should warn you that your younger brother is the more impressive conversationalist.” She hummed, a soft and impossible sound which made air catch minisculely in Celegorm’s throat. “My expectations have grown unattainably high.”

(“The daughter of Fëanor,” she had said, tapping a finger on her own knee. There was an undeniable pull to her, and Celegorm had stepped too earnestly close before she had paused, at the foot of the bed. “The wildest of you seven, I have heard. Though, for a Noldo, that does not mean anything at all.”)

(“And what do you suggest by that?” Celegorm had asked, with a smile. “That we are all wild, to levels unquantifiable?” Lúthien had only looked at her blandly.)

“I come to keep you company,” said Celegorm. “I imagine it is lonely here, without the stars.”

“I had meant what I said about drowning you in the Narog,” retorted Lúthien venomously. “Do not taunt me, Fëanoriel.”

“I would not dream to do so.” Her reply had forced Celegorm’s gaze downward, to her own lap. She shrugged, hoping with the motion to strike an irreverently apologetic chord. “I ask you to reconsider our offer of a politically advantageous union.”

“ _ Our  _ offer?” Lúthien snorted. “To which one of you am I meant to be married, then?”

“To me, of course.” Celegorm meant to laugh, to show her teeth in a grin. She did not manage it, under the renewed weight of Lúthien’s gaze. “Curvo has already been married once.”

“Of course.” A soft, sliding noise as Lúthien brought her legs over the edge of the bed. Another gentle noise, as she stood. “In that case, my answer remains the same.”

Celegorm’s brow creased. “Do you mean by that that you would marry Curufin, if the offer was extended—”

“I  _ mean _ by  _ that,  _ Fëanoriel—” Lúthien stalked around the corner of the bed, and came before her too quickly. Celegorm stood, and meant to scramble backward from the desk chair, but Lúthien was suddenly too close, and too tall, and to perform any sudden reactionary movement would surely only deliver to her more material for predation. “I mean by  _ that _ , that I would rather eat both of your hearts than give you mine in any context, politically binding or not, and that it is only out of respect to the law of the Eldar that I do not do so now for my own amusement.”

“Oh,” said Celegorm, and coughed in discomfort.

(“Let me go,” Lúthien had said. “Let me go, and I will forget this.”)

(“I would not forget it,” Celegorm had said. “My lady.”)

“Is this how all the Noldor marry their wives?” Lúthien was too close still; Celegorm’s head spun from looking into her fathomless eyes. “With deception and locked doors, and not a single mention of a bride price?”

“There is a bride price,” said Celegorm with some effort. She felt her own pulse wild in her throat. “The bride price is comfortable peace between Thingol Greycloak and my family, a—a renewed friendship—”

“That is no gift,” said Lúthien lowly. “That is you, asking another favor of me.”

And she reached out, and she placed a sharp nail against the fluttering artery in Celegorm’s neck.

Celegorm laughed.

“I could ask more favors,” she said unevenly. Lúthien was too close, and she smelled of the air just after a lightning strike. Celegorm bared her teeth in a grin. “Seeing as you wish to discuss bride price—”

“A Silmaril,” murmured Lúthien, and Celegorm faltered. Her pulse beat much too quickly now, and the grin slid from her lips. “A Silmaril is what was asked of Beren—a Silmaril to set in my father’s treasury or perhaps to wear at his throat. I think that is a fair request.”

“You go too far, daughter of Thingol,” said Celegorm lowly. Then she lifted her chin high, as Lúthien’s sharp nail came up swiftly to rest at the ridge of her jaw.

“Am I not worth the hallowed works of your father? You have paid other lives for them before, and here I am offering you mine—and for only one, I might note.” Lúthien brought her face close to Celegorm’s. Lightly, pathetically, Celegorm began to pant. “Beren son of Barahir is willing to pay it.  _ For little price do Elven-kings sell their daughters _ , he had said,  _ for gems and things made by craft.” _

Celegorm tightened her teeth. Her head spun. “Lúthien,” she said, raggedly, and in the deep darkness of Lúthien’s eyes there was a flicker of amusement. She brought her lips beside Celegorm’s twitching ear.

“I might give you this,” she murmured. “But then you will come no more to this door. You will send your brother to negotiate, as he does not work himself into pathetic whimpering when he does so, and if you see me ever again, daughter of Fëanor, I will owe you nothing. That is my own price.”

“I have sent—” spoke Celegorm, with difficulty. There was desire in her throat, palpable enough that she could hardly speak around it. “—have sent letters to your father—”

“You will receive no answer,” said Lúthien beside her ear. “The King in Menegroth will not broker any further deals with the children of Fëanor.”

And then she stepped back, precisely one step, and Celegorm breathed. She thought that this was unwise, thought that perhaps for once in her life it would have been best to heed Curufin’s exhaustive rules, thought that this was very  _ stupid _ , to think that she could have successfully entrapped the child of Melian with her raptor gaze and her sharp talons and her musical voice—

Lúthien placed a finger on her bottom lip, and when Celegorm’s mouth parted without even a bid to do so, she slipped that finger into her mouth and pressed the soft pad of it to the point of one of Celegorm’s sharp teeth. Celegorm’s mouth flooded hungrily, and she made a quiet and earnest noise in her throat. 

(“Bloodthirsty, and more than half-mad, I have heard them whisper of you,” Lúthien had said. “You may have forbidden them to speak to me, but I know what they think. You will not hold your sway over this kingdom for long, and I believe it would amuse me to watch it slip through your fingers.”)

There was no flicker of amusement now in Lúthien’s eyes. She ran her finger along the ridge of Celegorm’s teeth investigatively, back to her molars, and then to the front again, where she pressed the pad to a sharpened canine until the skin broke, and briefly Celegorm tasted blood.

With her other hand Lúthien gripped her jaw, then removed her finger from her mouth and daubed the blood on Celegorm’s lip. She held her fast, mouth torn open and saliva collecting in the well of her jaw, until at last Celegorm made a pitiful noise of entreaty. Then Lúthien released her, and Celegorm’s teeth snapped shut, and her chest rose and fell quickly in panic, in excitement, and she gasped, “ _ Lúthien— _ ”

The taste of Ainur blood filled her mouth, from what little Lúthien had left painted on her canine, and urgently Celegorm took her tongue and her teeth over her lower lip to collect the rest of it. 

(“Allow me to make the arrangements,” Curufin had said. “You could not negotiate to save either of our lives.”)

“Will you dare to ask a favor of me now?” spoke Lúthien with her black gaze and her windblown hair. Celegorm’s eyes were wide, and she could not think of a favor to ask with this heady blood on her tongue. “What about a parcel of my mother’s land as dowry, since you have so carelessly lost your own?”

Now Celegorm meant to bare her teeth, to snarl at this insult which fell so blithely from Lúthien’s lips. Instead, she panted. “A dowry,” she said, “without a marriage?”

“Perhaps I will take my bride price without a marriage too,” mused Lúthien, and wildly Celegorm laughed.

“Foolish,” she said. “A deadly and doomed errand.”

“But I am not doomed.” Lúthien caught a handful of her hair, loosely braided as it was down Celegorm’s back, and pulled tight, exposing nakedly the cords of her neck. She laid her teeth there, as sharp as Celegorm’s own, as she pulled at the laces of Celegorm’s riding leggings. Celegorm hissed. “Perhaps  _ I _ will wear it, instead of my father. Then you may think of me dancing with your father’s jewel at my brow, while you rot here in your stolen starless caves.”

“You could see the stars still tonight,” offered Celegorm breathlessly. With both her hands she gripped tight the edge of the desk against which Lúthien had driven her. “Marry me, and you may walk free—”

“You are a very poor negotiator.” Lúthien’s nails drove hard into the bare flesh of her inner thigh.

“Typically if one is a princess,” replied Celegorm, “one  _ commands _ , rather than negotiates.”

“And will you endeavor to command me?” Lúthien’s knuckles wound twice in her hair.

Wildly again, Celegorm laughed. Sobbed. There was a sound in her throat which was desperate and somehow unlike her, and then it was in the small space between them, unsteady and unimpressive. Lengthy proximity to Ainur made such messy, weepy things of incarnates, Celegorm had found. “I have already tried,” she replied hoarsely. “ _Marry_ _me_ , marry me, Lúthien Tinúviel—”

Fiercely, Lúthien yanked at her hair. Celegorm yelped, and then snarled, and the princess of Doriath brought her teeth close beside her ear and said: “Keep that name from your mouth.”

“Of course.” Lúthien’s fingers sought between her thighs, and Celegorm’s head knocked back against her hand which held fast her hair. “Lúthien,  _ Lúthien—” _

She was weeping. The space between her and Lúthien tasted of storms, of lightning which could set wildfires, and the princess of Doriath was too beautiful to be looked at. Celegorm needed to close her eyes. Feeling more than half-mad, she tipped back her gaze and laughed.

(“Try not to be foolish,  _ nésa _ ,” Curufin had snapped. “Though I know that is difficult for you.”)

“I cannot agree to your bride price,” Celegorm gasped, though there was a great wave building in her and she felt inclined to agree at this moment. She was shuddering—too close, too  _ close _ , Celegorm had learned this lesson before in her old homeland, that to let something like Lúthien touch her was to be tested at the very seams of her body, and she would feel ragged and unreal and wanting for days following—and there were cooling tears on her cheeks. If she cut herself open now, she felt certain that it would be silver light that bled from inside her, but the light would be Lúthien’s, and Celegorm merely its conduit. “I cannot agree.”

Lúthien removed her hand perfunctorily from between her legs. She set her slick forefinger again on Celegorm’s bottom lip, and for her part Celegorm felt a  _ please  _ working its way onto her tongue, but the daughter of Thingol and Melian only looked at her very coolly.

“And I will not agree to your marriage,” she replied, and then once more she stepped back. “Now go.”

They had not finished. Celegorm set her lip outward petulantly, but Lúthien was already turning aside.

“Leave me, Fëanoriel,” she commanded without another glance. “And do not come by again.”

Celegorm swept her tongue over her bottom lip. She felt that she was mourning something, and furthermore felt intimately that it was something foolish—perhaps that Lúthien had not allowed her to kiss her before she bid her leave—as she fixed her leggings and her tunic hem and tugged her collar over the tender mark which the princess of Doriath had left at her neck. 

“Is this meant to conclude our negotiation?” She had meant for the question to sound flippant, but the timbre of her voice was inconsistent. She bit hard at her inner cheek.

Lúthien waved a dismissive hand. “You may conclude it yourself,” she said, and sat once more on the bed.

Celegorm certainly felt more than half-mad now. She moved for the door, and then paused and turned just before it. 

“I too have seen Beren, son of Barahir,” she snapped with all of her venom. On the bed, Lúthien did not look the slightest bit frightened. “You would waste your beauty on him, and for too little a time.”

“It is not a thing which can be wasted,” said Lúthien with a twist of her too-beautiful mouth. “Though I would rather he enjoy it for the rest of his short mortal life, than I would you do so for your eternal one.”

Celegorm thought to snarl at this. But she was ill-situated and unsteady at this unconventional summit between their two families, having just forfeited all of her bargaining material in exchange for a brief not-quite-marriage, and even her half-madness could not muster a wicked and clever response now. Lúthien hummed, when Celegorm faltered.

“I will see the stars again, daughter of Fëanor,” Lúthien said tranquilly. “And when I do, I will tell them of what you have tried here, and how you have failed.” 

“Will you provide details?” asked Celegorm insolently, and when Lúthien bared her teeth the daughter of Fëanor did indeed quail at the sight.

Outside the room, beside the wolfhound which had also become so enamored of Lúthien that he had divested himself from all sense, Celegorm tipped back her head and surveyed the stone ceiling of Nargothrond. She thought of the Narog, and how it might feel to stand at its deepest and swiftest point and let the water flood over her head, and she tested the point of her hunting knife against the meat of her palm. She felt much more than half-mad, much more than enamored, but taken with the hope that some of that silver light of Lúthien’s still quivered beneath her own flesh, and that if Celegorm could only see it and only taste it, she could explain what she felt she had lost here.

But when the knifepoint broke skin, it was only red blood which bloomed in her palm. Celegorm pressed the fresh open wound to her mouth, thinking of stars which she could not see and jewels which she could not steal, and she sneered.

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on tumblr as batshape!


End file.
